Am I wrong to be so disturbed and depressed by all of this? There are days I honestly don't understand my city or my state. We have unions threatening boycotts of businesses and police basically not doing their job because they feel "put upon". It may be trite to say - but I am worried about the world my children have to look forward to living in.

The way I figure it, the more these so-calldd "civil servants" continue to try and hold states, counties, cities, schools etc hostage with their childish, obnoxious, and arrogant actions, well, there's a lot more blowback that could be heading their way. Let them keep this shit up - people ARE going to get fed up even more, if they are not already.

So, again, explain to me how this will not happen. The WI is a prototype of what you will see in summer and fall of 2012. Trust me. I know everything.Then you're better than the rest of us because the sane among us would not claim to know the future.

The only "poll" that matters is the one taken by the voters at the ballot box. Until then, I hope that Wisconsin's independent voters come to see the union thuggery for what it is and the balanced budget as a very good thing, and vote accordingly.

"We have unions threatening boycotts of businesses and police basically not doing their job because they feel "put upon".

Face it ... your government is corrupt.

You've been too busy working your ass off trying to provide for your family and pay your ever-increasing tax burden and still try to get ahead.

While you were busy doing that, they were devising ways to steal it from you.

The police do not feel "put upon." They're ON. THE. OTHER. SIDE. They are criminals. Not petty-theivery-shoplift-from-Wal-Mart criminals. Not punch-your-girlfriend criminals. They're frying much bigger fish.

They're the protection racket.

And they're armed, so don't think about fucking with them. They'll shoot you in the back and then claim they were reaching for their taser. Maybe they'll get two years ... but you'll be dead and out of the way.

Ut - what you say about the police being utterly corrupted is scary indeed. I would be scared shitless to be a WI resident right now, knowing that the police wasn't unconditionally "serving & protecting".

The other thing that Walker (and the other R's in WI) have on their side is their adult behavior. My recommended slogan for Republicans in 2012: "Adult. Leadership."

Chanting and protesting and fleeing to IL might rev up your base...but for how long? Emotion and hyperbole only gets you so far.

I believe Paul Ryan a few weeks ago was advocating that conservatives stay out of the personality business and and follow thru with their ideas - smaller government, more efficient services, accountability and austerity. In 2012 and 2014, I think that will serve conservatives well.

We will look back on the "Civil Service Reform Law" (that's what I'm calling it from now on) as one of the starting points for getting WI back on track.

In a few weeks, I'm going to Weare, NH to lend moral support to someone who was the victim of police corruption and is charged with a felony for it. There, the police have a bona fide "protection" racket going on. They approach local business owners and demand that they hire them in the moonlighting hours as security guards. Those that don't hire them are put on the police shit-list and harassed. Similarly, citizens who try to talk about what is going on are harassed by inane criminal charges that are clearly intended as political retaliation.

Then there's the whole issue of police coming into schools and pushing their political programs like DARE down the throats of kids. Gotta make sure the kids are turned off from libertarian thought at the earliest possible age, apparently.

In my hometown, I was acquainted with a high-ranking police inspector who had been good friends with the Mayor since childhood and had been a long-time partner of the Police Chief. This dude ended up murdering his wife by stabbing her some 13 times. His buddies the Mayor and Police Chief ignored obvious warning signs about his increasingly violent and erratic behavior, including multiple direct appeals from the now-dead wife. To them, everything was "just fine".

There are so many reasons to hate the police, to hate every aspect of the so-called "law enforcement", jail-our-citizens business.

Anyone who signs up for a job in that line of work is a dirtbag in my book, and can go to hell.

Ah, c'mon. Durkin is not even making a serious argument and she is clearly short a few million nuerons.

Can't somebody get an actual economist in here to explain to Ann and Glenn how this stuff (people getting paid for what they do and paying for what they get--oops, Ann and Glenn don't know about getting paid for what they do) reallly works.

Mankiw's new edition of Principles of Economics is out. $205 bucks at Amazon (but not a link to be found on Mankiw's blog site).

Maybe Ann and Glenn can use some of their Amazon bucks or their state salaries to pick up a copy.

Then they would at least recognize an economic ignoramus before they both link to one.

If it is true that we are near the tipping point as far as unsustainable budgets and the tax base inability to pay then the Walker experiment should be fresh in peoples memory as the time when an elected peoples representative stood up and said STOP.

If the experiment fails we (at least Wisconsin for certain) will not be able to say that we were misled.

lucid, intead of just calling people names, why don't you explain why Durkin is wrong and making Wisconsin's DMV clerks pay part of their own health insurance costs will lead to economic disaster? Hmmm?

All I know about this whole situation here in Wisconsin over the past month is this:

Scott Walker has a pair of titanium balls. And the Fitzgerald brothers are the perfect pair to have in the GOP leadership while he is in office.

The one other thing Im pretty sure of: every Democratic senator (and probably Dale Schultz, the only GOP Senator to vote against the repair bill) arent going to get one favor from Walker or Fitzgerald in their entire term.

You keep setting up straw men. No one is arguing that public employees shouldn't have to make wage and benefit concessions, and in fact they already have,

Durkin is saying, incredibly stupidly considering that she is doing it in print, that when teachers negotiate for wage in a collective bargaining process that the schools will suffer so much that the working class will hqve to pay for so much more themselves and that this will be a disaster.

There is a marketplace that sorts this stuff out, and the market forces apply to a collective bargaining process and to whether workers spend their money on this or on that as to anything else.

But I reallly don't have the time or interest to try to explain this all to you.

I had to do some community service as a result of some personal shenanigans I believe I've shared here b4.

Anyways.. I went on recycling collection for the town I live at.. there was/is the same talk from the NJ governor as in Wisconsin.

You should see the animus and anger of these guys in the morning when they start gathering (b4 they get their assignments) watching the morning news.. Every time Gov Cristy came on some news story, they started cursing him out.

One day, as we were doing the route, they are talking about the cuts that are coming.. and it turns out I'm doing the route with a union rep.

He's getting all sorts of pressure from the workers telling him not to compromise.. that they should get their raises the same as every year.. while he is trying to explain to them that this time things are different.

Later, after we finished, he gave me a ride home. He told me, when people are loosing their homes and loosing their jobs its very difficult to get any sympathy with them (taxpayers).

This was from a union rep.

Apparently somebody had gone and talked to a newspaper anonymously and management (non union) was very upset, to the point of threatening to fire whoever had done it, because they (management) were themselves under pressure from those above them.

I believe we may not have another opportunity this good to end the cycle of abuse for a long time.

This dreadful economy is our chance to bring back some sanity to state government.

"So, again, explain to me how this will not happen. The WI is a prototype of what you will see in summer and fall of 2012."

You could be right. The Democrats and the unions (sorry for the redundancy) have chosen this hill to die on today.

They will win or lose. I agree with Ryan that it is the time for the GOP to act as adults and see if the public can get the message. If not, we will see 21% mortgage interest again and the country will be heading for default. If they lose, at least they will not share the blame. Usually, politicians want to fuzz the differences so they do not stand or fall on facts. This is the time to do so.

In 1979, Reagan came along. He was called "too conservative" to be elected and the polls were very close until the second debate. This will play out much the same way.

I don't see how Democrats can play this both ways. They have to go with the unions because that's where their money comes from (Aside from Soros and Gaza). If they lose, and I suspect they are less committed to principle than the GOP, they know this will be the end for decades.

Of course, we could be wrong about the economics but not many objective observers believe that. I'm kind of glad I'm 73. I won't have to live long with the consequences of a wrong decision.

@ALH and edutcher, sorry to tell you (and as a fiscally conservative Republican for over 40 years, you have no idea how sorry I am to tell you), but what you're seeing in Wisconsin is an old story being played out yet again.

People vote Democrat until their state economy is in the crapper. Then they vote Republicans into office to clean out the privy. Once the state stops hemorrhaging red ink, they'll vote the Democrats right back in. It even happens out in California, now and again.

On the other hand, don't expect Democrats, once they regain control of the state, to bring back collective bargaining for public unions. They'll know that it's a guaranteed route to fiscal insolvency and another Republican takeover of the governor's office and the legislature.

Sorry to be so cynical, but the people of left-leaning states are pretty much all alike that way.

In the linked article Tish Durkin misses another unintended consequence. Poor cities with high-paid teachers will max out class size. This runs directly counter to the common wisdom on how to improve outcomes. (Don't be fooled by the lede at the link; scroll down and you'll get the message.)

The favored leftist rejoinder of taxing the rich simply does not work at the local level. The rich aren't there. Ironically, taxing the rich is most meaningless in any city whose main industries are government and universities.

In the linked article Tish Durkin misses another unintended consequence. Poor cities with high-paid teachers will max out class size. This runs directly counter to the common wisdom on how to improve education. (Don't be fooled by the lede at the link; scroll down and you'll get the message.)

The favored leftist rejoinder of taxing the rich simply does not work at the local level. The rich aren't there. Ironically, taxing the rich is most meaningless in any city whose main industries are government and universities.

I don't think that the house or senate will go back to the Dems this time around.

But I do think that thanks to the lunatic fringe of the repbulicans--like Walker, Palin, Bachmann, and some of the numbskulls who post here--that the dem majority in the house will be sharply reduced and that Obam will be a shoo-in.

In public opinion polling, Americans oppose what Walker is doing by a 2 to 1 margin. Americans don't like extremists.

the republicans are blowing their chance just like Pelosi did for the Dems and like Gingrich did in 1994.

Obama is going to be president for the next six years thanks to assholes like Scott Walker.

In the linked article Tish Durkin misses another unintended consequence. Poor cities with high-paid teachers will max out class size. This runs directly counter to the common wisdom on how to improve outcomes (http://www.good.is/post/can-we-improve-education-by-increasing-class-size/ -- Don't be fooled by the lede at the link; scroll down and you'll get the message.)

The favored leftist rejoinder of taxing the rich simply does not work at the local level. The rich aren't there. Ironically, taxing the rich is most meaningless in any city whose main industries are government and universities.

There is one big thing in Wisconsin that this whole debate has overshadowed:

Redistricting.

Now that the census figures are in, the GOP is free to redistrict. If the Senate Dems want to keep this up and get this mad over the budget, just wait until the GOP re-do some of the senate districts...guys like Chris Larson will have no chance if they can dive his district to the south and west (Paul Ryan's congressional district). And GOP "swing" districts like Alberta Darling's can be made more "conservative-proof". If Wirch is successfully recalled (which looks more and more likely by the day), one can easily see the GOP gaining 2 or 3 seats out of this whole mess over the next couple of years.

The Dems have been so short-sighted in this whole debate by burning so many bridges with guys like Walker and Fitzgerald. Its like they have no idea how to see the big picture in anything.

"Obama is going to be president for the next six years thanks to assholes like Scott Walker."

---------------

Thats complete BS. Obama's second term lies solely on the economy. If unemployment is still high and the economy continues to sputter throughout the summer, Obama is very vulnerable...because independents in this country that were swayed by his smooth-talking ways the first time around know he will be full of shit again.

Obama cant run on "hope and change" for his second term. He actually has a record now.

@ sane - Not sure who the best group is for 4 donations, but i'll be supporting my Sen. Dan Kapanke (32nd district)directly if he faces a recall...which he probably will. He had 100 a-holes protesting in his front yard this weekend and has received threats.

I am worried about the world my children have to look forward to living in.

I'm worried about my country, not the whole world. The message from the article in "The Week" is that if you're an employee in America, your life must suck. There will be the 400 haves, and the three hundred million have nots. People who want to live a middle class life will have to move to Europe or Canada.

my point was obviously rhetorical, but you are incapable of understanding subtlety.

my real point is that Althouse and Reynolds, who have been lambasting the Wisconsin teachers, are themsleves both state paid teachers with impossible-to-fire contracts who spend very little time working at the job that taxes are paid to have them do.

In other words, they are hypocrites.

If they tried what they are doing in the private sector, they would get their asses fired so fast they would leave their underwear behind.

Neither of them really does much as a law professor--they are too busy with their blogs.

on the other hand, the teachers whom they excoriate actually work at what they are paid to do, far harder, for longer hours, and for a lot less money than Reynolds and Althouse.

Ann and especially Glenn make this exploitation of the taxpayers worse by hawking wares at Amazon which earn them about 8% on each purchase. So they are not doing the jobs they are paid to do in order to make money doing something that has nothing to do with the law or their students.

If you want to see what a real academic professional's blog looks like, google Becker-Posner or Mankiw.

I'm sure that you won't be able to understand what you read there, but at least notice the absence of links to Amazon.

Glenn has had a death-in-japan theme going all day with his Amazon links. Especially unseemly.

FLS -- Come on, man. I legitimately answered your question. I realize mine is loaded, but you have now answered back with a bad metaphorical question.

I feel like a lack of understanding of economics is your real weak point in your world view. A lot of leftists have this problem. I think that you view economics as something that is pliable -- controllable, either by government of by some group of super rich. It's not, no more than thermodynamics.

If you had a firmer grasp of economics, you would see that things cannot go on the way they have gone on with the demands public-sector unions make on state coffers. And that no amount of taxation will fix this, as taxation necessarily restricts economic growth.

Lucid -- Why don't all these hardworking teachers you speak of have popular, widely read websites? It certainly can't be lack of something interesting to say. After all, they are so smart, so witty, and so hardworking. Certainly, all the smart and hardworking kids flocked straight to the schools of education as undergrads.

I guess they are just too busy, huh, what with the picketing and the six hour work days and 15 weeks of vacation a year.

Right now? By cutting corporate taxes. By being able to grow into a formerly communist country. By roping in other sovereign countries to a currency that allows them to maintain export markets in those sovereign countries. By billions (at least in today's terms) in foreign aid in World War II.

In the longer view, Germany -- with Weimar inflation and the rise of militant socialism, and that's just the last 80 years -- is such a bad example as to be farcical.

..my real point is that Althouse and Reynolds, who have been lambasting the Wisconsin teachers, are themsleves both state paid teachers with impossible-to-fire contracts who spend very little time working at the job that taxes are paid to have them do.

my real point is that Althouse and Reynolds, who have been lambasting the Wisconsin teachers, are themsleves both state paid teachers with impossible-to-fire contracts who spend very little time working at the job that taxes are paid to have them do.

Liberals say the darndest things.

So you finally admit such a monster exists. That's progress, I suppose.

People who want to live a middle class life will have to move to Europe or Canada.

Dude, you're talking out of your ass, there is no middle class as we know it in Europe.

There's also that little problem of residential and work permits. It is impossible to reside and/or work in Europe without them and they are very difficult for an non-sponsored individual to obtain. You must post a large bond to insure you will not become dependent on the state. Some countries also demand a large cash deposit in Euros to be held by a local bank.

This also assumes you are literate in their language, they don't accomodate other languages as do we.

Europeans only want temporary, unskilled immigrant labor (the jobs Europeans will not do...sound familiar?), the so called "guest workers" not competition for their govt subsidized and protected jobs.

One of the most hotly disputed issues in the ratification of the EU Constitution has been workers crossing borders. Have you not heard about the Polish Plumber kerfuffle?

So you can image how eager they would be for an influx of American workers...they barely tolerate us on holiday.

BJM -- To the left, Europe is always better and Sweden will always be a socialist paradise. The fact that American pension and safety net practices are not far, far more socialist than Sweden's will never matter.

I am a (management side) labor lawyer. On Friday, I had a client -- a Wisconsin school superintendent --- tell me this: Now we will start transforming education. I hope he can. I will do my part to help.

Call me crazy but I believe a superintendent, who is at the school (boots on the ground) should have more say on whether or not a teacher is doing a good job, instead of a first in last out crap shoot union rule.

Lem you are right. But we have a paradigm shift here. The most interesting and useful conversations now are about what the local communities do with this new paradigm. It is huge, and no one has had a lot of time to really think through what it means for their workplace. So say my public sector clients. But I have faith that they and the communities will make the best of it. Hopefully not on the backs of good workers.

When you go from a complaint of No Child Left Behind being that it required testing the students so it could be learned what progress if any the tax payer money investment is having.. to waht Walker is proposing.

I mean, how dare you try to find out if high school students can read.. But thats were we are.

NCLB has not worked, everyone knows it. It's complicated of course but poverty is the problem.

I wish people would learn and talk about solving problems. I'm a lawyer and parent of 2 small kids in Milwaukee where the schools are about to face a huge paradigm shift, possibly dismantling. I am worried about my community.

Frankly, I have less faith in a world where learned and respected people spend an entire day taking pictures of other people's day literally for the puruse of making fun of them.

The world will be so much safer for cheap gasoline and all the things we now just dont have because they are so expensive.. when the Chinese take over as the world superpower we will have those in abundance.. I just cant wait.

The Lefties, ever more profane and derogatory as their arguments are shot down, can't escape the economic reality.

Unemployment is at least 10.3 (by Gallup(often in the tank for The Zero, BTW)'s count) with a combined un/underemployment of 19.9. This doesn't even take in the 5 - 6.5 mil who have given up.

By saying those who drop out (the so-called 99ers) are no longer in the workforce and thus giving the ludicrous rate of 8.9, this Administration is making itself a laughingstock.

Food and fuel prices are rising - even if Libya stabilizes thanks to The Zero's and Europe's dithering. Again, this is not counted by the CPI, so any claim there is no inflation is proven false by a trip to the gas station or grocery store.

Forget any possible foreign policy disasters due to the Administration's Carteresque bumbling, The Man from Altgeld Gardens has 1 year to turn this around before the electorate loses hope and wants a change.

hey doris: have you watched or listened to ANY of the media coverage of what is happening here in Madison? You can't have because there is only "happiness and light" with the protests. There is no mention of that these people are being thugs, they wreck the capitol, they threaten businesses, they call in sick when they are not with no consequences, they are rushing to renew contracts before the bill is official, they are in collusion with the Secretary of State and I could go on and on.

We need blogs to learn the truth because we will NEVER get it from the regular media.

Public opinion doesn't care what Walker did. It has already moved on to Japan/Libya/Sheen.

Only about 12% of the nation's workforce is unionized, and only those in PEUs are affected by such restrictions. If you are expecting some sort of leftist TP then you are going to be greatly disappointed.

Unlike the issues of debt and ObamaCare this has next to no effect on the average person. There may be some short term push-back, especially in WI, but this will be all but forgotten by 2012.

I foresee the day when every resident of Wisconsin willingly donates a portion of their salary to a union. Kids too, like kicking back 10% of their babysitting money and cookie sales to Local 102 of the Teamsters.

As it stands now, Wisonsin has a governor who is so hated that he cannot appear in public because of the level of public protest that would occur.That says more about the protestors than it does about him. Even very popular leaders can be physically harmed by one psycho, much less a whole mob of people high on the union Kool-Aid.

Lucid refers to long standing Rights. I question the definition--if these relations btwn public employees and elected officials are rights they can be reviewed in court. I would hold that the relationship (not rights)worked because the grease was taxpayer funds. NOT RIGHTS ---BUT PROSTITUTION btwn two groups of public employees with tax funds-IT'S OVER. Unless you want to go the route taken in Europe. Can hardly wait for the adult taxpayers in Wisc to express their approval of Gov Walker in the voting booth.

I live in the Fox Valley area of Wisconsin. Several of our school districts rushed to do contracts so they could bypass the new law. The Unions have sent threatening emails to all the local businesses. Post signs supporting them, cancel our memberships in our trade organizations (if they supported Walker in the 2010 election), or be boycotted. My business paid $$$$$ in school district taxes last year. Donated $$$ in product and services to them. Talk about bite the hand that feeds you .....I have numerous family members that will not talk to me - two of them daughters - because i DARE to be supportive of Walker. It IS a civil war in Wisconsin. Clearly a large percentage of the population, at least here in the Valley, are willing to do ANYTHING to destroy the rest of us. It is just sickening. Would move out of this state in a second if i had the means.

lucid, you misrepresent the Rasmussen poll. It actually showed that more people supported Walker, than opposed him. It was the Gallup poll that showed the reverse.

But like all typical lefties, you ae long on bull and short on facts.

Unions, in the end, will lose this dangerous game they are playing. Even in Wisconsin, unions represent only 14.8% of the work force. Have you really drank the Kool-aide that makes you believe as other citizens in Wisconsin worry about losing their jobs they care about public sector workers who for too long have made demands the taxpayers can't met?

But the truth of the matter is that this is not about the unions, teachers, benefits. It is about the power the Democratic Party lost last November. Blue states are going to lose representatives, red states are going to gain them, in the federal House. Our economy sucks, and if union workers find that by not paying dues, they get to spend that money on their kids, the unions lose.

When the union loses membership, union management has a harder times explaining their tony salaries, there is less money to dump into Democratic campaign coffers and there is competition for those jobs where employers realize that they no longer have to tolerate a non-performing union worker.

Take a look at the national scene; what states are growing both in population and jobs? Not the "closed shop" union states. And what color are those states that are seeing businesses move out to more tax friendly, right-to-work states?

Americans cannot afford higher taxation to pander to the PEUs. Not when the cost of living is rapidly rising. And those who have already lost their jobs will have little sympathy for those who are guaranteed a job via union regulations.

The unions say they want a seat at the table. So they have dumped millions of $$ into politicians that would pander to them. If the unions are so secure that what they do are beneficial let them put increases in union benefits on the ballot. Taxpayers deserve a seat at the table, as well since they are the ones footing the bill.

What Wisconsin has shown is the desparation of union goons and Democratic politicians who understand the tide has turned for them. I'm just sorry that we have to witness how low they have sank.

Public employees --elected and salaried don't pay taxes--a portion of the money paid them is withheld and designated as taxes --but the funds originated from money paid by actual taxpayers. Come on --- get real people

I never said it was popular, I said people don't really care. Only about 12% of workers are in unions (slightly over half are govt. workers) so the vast majority of people aren't concerned about laws affecting unions.

ObamaCare will destroy the budget and excessive debt will cause future tax increases. These will affect us all. The WI law will only affect some of the PEUs in that state.

Already the issue has faded from the public consciousness as crises in Libya and Japan have occurred.

And I must say that I had quite the laugh at hearing a leftist accuse others of attacking a particular class of people.